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Rambo Tribble writes "Ultraviolet light flashes, or "corona", may be scaring animals and altering behavior. An international scientific team, first studying behavioral anomalies in reindeer near power lines, have found that sporadic flashes of UV from the lines are probably responsible. As most mammals can see into the UV spectrum, this has broad implications for the disruption of animal behavior. From the BBC article: "Since, as the researchers added, coronas 'happen on all power lines everywhere,' the avoidance of the flashes could be having a global impact on wildlife.""

The issue is that corona discharges are more prevalent on high voltage transmission lines. They require large clearances and rights-of-way - not ideal to run 220 kV up and down every road in the nation!

You wouldn't need to run high voltage up and down every road to acheive the same effect.A small light like wreckers or volunteer fire/police use except in the UV spectrum wouldprobably do the trick. Would also want to check and make sure it was legal first so youdon't get charged with "impersonating a cop" but if it was restricted to the UV spectrumyou should be fine.

If they acclimate. My dog has been around fire all her life and is still scared to death ofit even at a safe distance. Wild animals don't necessarily acclimate to everythingespecially if it is something (like a car) that they know causes harm. It's not likeroads provide food. On a non-busy road (which is where most deer accidents occur),a deer would be glad to avoid you if they had a reliable early warnings.

Funny how 30-40 sec into the video they've identified UV discharges from a tower that appears to have a flock of sheep browsing under it. Perhaps not so scary after all?

What makes you think sheep can see UV light?

Most mammals that can see UV light are nocturnal or live in arctic conditions where it helps deal with snow-blindness (according to current theories). It's also worth noting that mammals whose eyes filter out UV (like humans) tend to have better visual resolution.

Sheep are diurnal animals that rely heavily on vision for defense from predators. They also, like most dichromatic animals, have roughly red & green cones with no blue cones. It's pretty unlikely t

Not quite. How does the noise get generated? Air gets pushed through the whistle as the car pushes through the air. And in doing so it increases the air resistance of the car, requiring the engine to put out slightly more power to maintain a constant speed. So those whistles are fairly directly engine-powered, and probably horribly inefficient - vortices which form around the around the whistles will increase drag, and well as disrupt the laminar flow of air over the car

Does everything humans do that affects animal behavior need to be altered or fixed? In this case the "impact" is simply that the animals stay away from the power lines. There are countless naturally-occurring things in nature that have similar kinds of "impact".

What if those power lines cross a major migration route? Or block a nesting ground or food source? It's nothing personal, but I hate when people just say, "Well it's probably not a big deal." To us it may not seem like it, but to everything else it might be. We are the single most invasive species on the planet. That will eventually come back to haunt us.

Fair enough, but animals (like humans) are supremely adaptable. So the question remains - why is it a big deal if animal behavior is altered?

And calling humans an invasive species discounts our role in nature. We have survived through the evolution of our intelligence. The application of that intelligence includes altering nature to the full extent that we're able to in order to support our success as a species. All species do this to the full extent that they're able.

Because we have power lines everywhere and as far as I know we haven't really spent a lot of time considering the possibility that a simple power line is a de facto boundary to an animal's habitat. It's kind of a big deal when there are serious, important aspects of land use planning and environmental conservation that absolutely rely on accurately predicting and knowing an animal's range and habitat.

Is there an individual or species's intelligence that will ever compete with the collective intelligence of the billions of individual evolutionary processes occurring around us? Does nature consider the impact of these processes before allowing them to occur?

Nature doesn't "consider" anything. Your argument is basically that nature will adapt around us. Yes, it will..... but it might "adapt" in ways that eliminate important species, destroy biodiversity, and generally ravage the environment around us. Nature may "adapt" in ways that suck total ass for both us and millions of other species.

In my various travels, power lines are often placed near and parallel a roadway. That is less true in mountainous regions, where "the path with the least construction needs" can be over the top of a mountain for power lines and around it for the road, but it is a common trend.

So, if animals are learning to avoid the UV flashes of power lines, it also implies they are less prone to migrating across roads. If you like the continued existence of wild animals, that would be a good thing.

I appreciate your stance, but this whole "but X is adaptable!" answer to having to change our behaviour to help X is clearly limited. We need to know the scale of the impact before we know if they're adaptable enough to adapt to the changes we are throwing at them. I'm sure you appreciate that if the change we are talking about is simply making them walk 1 meter out of their way - they can probably adapt to that. If the change is causing them to jump off cliffs, there's not much adaptability that would work in that case.

Are you aware that we rely on other species to survive? We evolved with those other species around - removing them from our environment might indeed change the balance of wildlife to the point where things we directly rely on start being affected by our changes to other species. Yes, humans are awesome and clever and can fly and go to the moon and everything, but we still breathe the same air as other (air-breathing) animals, drink the same water, and live on the same planet.

Our role in nature should be to not mess with nature so much that we die out. The status quo got us this far - changing it too much is not a good idea. Science can tell us what constitutes "too much", and ignoring that is folly. Suicidal folly.

Yes our success is likely dependent on the survival of species around us. No we aren't smart enough (yet) to comprehend the permutations of possibilities and outcomes to conclude whether a particular action we take is ultimately helpful or harmful to us as a species.

We don't mess with nature. We are nature. The fact that our actions come about via volitional acts of cognition makes them no less natural than any other observable behavior from other species.

Are you aware that we rely on other species to survive? We evolved with those other species around - removing them from our environment might indeed change the balance of wildlife to the point where things we directly rely on start being affected by our changes to other species.

Don't worry, we're adaptable. We can just find some other way to metabolize glucose into ATP after we kill all the oxygen-producing creatures on the planet. Just one little atom, anyway - And heck, other critters use sulfur inst

Sometimes the animal adaptation proves to be a problem for us (and the animals). For example, not everyone is terribly happy that coyotes have adapted to suburban living. A lot of people aren't that happy that bears have adapted to food locked in small cars.

Sometimes the animal adaptation proves to be a problem for us (and the animals). For example, not everyone is terribly happy that coyotes have adapted to suburban living. A lot of people aren't that happy that bears have adapted to food locked in small cars.

While building the Alyeska Pipeline workers were taken out to the job site in buses; where they would leave their lunches. I've heard a few stories where a bear(s) had taken over the bus for the food.

Each story had the workers waiting until the bear was through until they could get back in.

Most of the time things like that don't work out well for the Bears. If the sites weren't so remote a group might of shown up, knocked the Bear out and flown it 200 miles away "so they couldn't find their way back".

Yes, altering the environment is pretty much the defining characteristic of an invasive species.

There's a difference between indirectly interacting with the environment in a manner that changes it (eating the deer, causing changes to the plants and other animals in the area), and directly interacting with the environment (draining swamps and filling in coastal areas to "reclaim" land).

Let us all know if this works....The deer and rabbits decimate my wife's garden every year. Somewhere in my basement, I have a 200KV power supply....a little motion sensor to kick off the spark gaps...hmmmmm.

As people don't like living under power lines the land is often left wild, a lot of power line corridors are counted as wildlife corridors. This would tend to indicate that animals also don't like living under power lines and that corridors should not be counted as wildlife corridors.

There are countless sources of fire in nature too, I guess we'll let your house burn when it catches fire. Do we really need to alter or fix that? Now, substitute planet for house, and maybe you'll start seeing it.

Uh, before you continue with the modern society slut shaming here, I'd like to know what the real impact has been since power lines are now considered "invasive" due to a UV light study.

We've had power lines in nature for decades now, and yet population numbers didn't wildly drop off. There were no random attacks by normally non-violent creatures due to this. No massive changes in behavior that had impact on a large scale, causing extinction. In fact, the only thing TFA calls out is the fact that reindee

Just because species have not been negatively affected in the past (to your knowledge) doesn't mean they won't be in the future. Imagine if a new set of power lines were installed across the migration paths of some large herbivores - they might affect their migration, and so the health of the groups affected. That means their normal predators (whose numbers have grown large enough to be sustained by that group of herbivores) are now without enough food. They might just start attacking humans. That's pre

You had a good factual point, then you ruined it with the political crap - by that I mean when has Gore ever called anyone "evil" for using electricity?

He didn't. It was a pun on the fact that the man did manage to make a career flying all around the globe warning us of the dangers of global warming as his airplanes shit out a carbon footprint of irony.

It's rather obvious when certain influential people jump to conclusions, and likely more for personal gain. And my factual points remain.

First off this is NOT a virtual WALL, it may discourage crossings, but does not prevent them. There are many things in nature that do a far better job of preventing crossings, rivers for example, or even relatively small streams. Crossing these likely exert more stress than some flashes of light.

I was wondering whether there UV flash also exist for DC transmission lines. Is there any expert around who knows that?

This is of interest as it is very difficult to build new power lines all over Europe, usually resulting in around 20 years of legal battle for a mere 30 km of power lines far away from any densely populated area. This is just slightly reduced for buried transmission lines with all their disadvantages. Thus a current idea/discussion is to hang DC power lines on existing poles for long distance transmission.

The development of a corona (surrounding plasma) is dependent on the electric field, but wouldn't discrete discharges be specific to the pulsing AC field? I would expect DC to just produce a constant, muted glow, rather than flashes.

Sure, power flow is important to whether a glow discharge turns into an full-blown breakdown / arc or not - but in this case, the time constants of the plasma are much much smaller than the AC's 1/f anyway - the plasma will extinguish when the field has a zero-crossing.

But yes, in this case, power line frequencies are pretty much DC, as the plasma is formed around high electric field regions, and the time for the plasma to form and stabilize is much quicker than 1/100 sec anyway.

The only thing that may make it slightly different from DC, is that you may only get a plasma for half the wave, and may not have the initial ionization event every time the field is in the plasma-forming direction. That could result in an "interupted"/flashing plasma, while a

AC won a hundred years ago, because DC voltage conversion and circuit termination was difficult a hundred years ago. These days, the only reason to stick with AC transmission is due to the legacy install base.

These days, the only reason to stick with AC transmission is due to the legacy install base.

You'd still want AC in the home though as its safer.

And yet, it isn't. For a given RMS voltage, AC is ever so slightly more dangerous, due to its higher peak, meaning it needs more insulation. Your muscles don't care about polarity, and 50/60Hz leaves too little time at zero point for the myth that you can release from AC current to be accurate. Anything in the path of the current is gone, and you're only going to pull yourself free using unaffected muscles. On the opposite side, 50/60Hz is too low for reactance or skin effect to make it behave significa

Can most animals also see infrared light? This may not be commonly known, but we, warm blooded animals, glow. Our body heat cause the emission of photons in the infrared spectrum, this is how forward looking infrared (FLIR) cameras work. Anyways, I was just wondering if animals can see other animals glowing at night.

Thermal emissions from body heat are a fair ways into the IR range, around 8000-15000nm. For reference, human vision peters out around 700nm. I believe it's only possible to detect that with specialized sensory organs, such as pit viper's eponymous thermal pits.

Thermal IR (the wavelengths emitted by things around body temperature) is really low-energy. It's hard to focus, and hard to detect, especially with a detector that's already in the same temperature range. Pit vipers, vampire bats and some other animals do it, but the mechanism's fundamentally different from normal vision, and doesn't provide much in the way of an actual focused image. (The pit viper's pit is sort of like a pinhole camera with a really big pinhole.)

Near-IR, the kind of thing that cheap digital security cameras can see, is higher-energy. It can be emitted thermally, but you've got to get pretty hot (hundreds of degrees) to produce significant amounts. Go a little hotter, and you can produce visible light ("red-hot", "white-hot", etc.).

Even near-IR is hard to pick up with a chemical process, though, the way retinal cells pick up visible light. I'm not aware of any animals that can see significantly further than us into the near-IR -- okay, a bit of Googling turned up one fish that can do it [themunicheye.com].

Apparently quite a few birds can also see UV. Knowing that, would it be possible to use a UV light system to steer birds away from windmills? It appears that bird deaths is a major problem point for the renewable energy source, so any passive way of warding birds away from them would be a good thing.

Apparently quite a few birds can also see UV. Knowing that, would it be possible to use a UV light system to steer birds away from windmills? It appears that bird deaths is a major problem point for the renewable energy source, so any passive way of warding birds away from them would be a good thing.

Where I live is fairly windy all the freaking time, the South horizon is just an endless line of wind turbines. UV at the end of each blade might not be a bad idea.

My city (Melbourne, Oz) is on the upper edge of the southern ocean's "roaring forties", there are a few windmills dotted around the state but for some reason we are still fully reliant on brown coal for electricity, a mine that feeds the coal plants recently caught fire and burnt for a month resulting in the town of Morwell being partially evacuated due to the toxic cloud from the fire. Looking at it from a purely logical POV, it's fucking insane!

At night-time, birds tend to fly towards light. Many downtowns with skyscraper office blocks end up with flocks of dead birds at street level due to birds flying towards the office lights. If anything you would need bright lights at either side of the wind turbines, so the birds could see a safe path to fly along.

It appears that bird deaths is a major problem point for the renewable energy source

No it is not a "major problem", can we drop please that bullshit meme, smaller (fast spinning) windmills and windmills built on migration paths do kill birds and this was a minor problem in the early days that closed down a few mills. Modern windmills sited with a bit of forethought are no more likely to kill birds than a stationary skyscraper.

Minor problem* - The number of birds killed by flying into windmills and other large buildings pales into insignificance when you consider the impact of domestic c

... people are not entirely visually oblivious to the UV spectrum; most popular laundry detergents include UV reflection enhancers that make the clothes treated with them look brighter. Hunters often employ special detergents to avoid this and its affect on game. This leads me to wonder if those who claim to have adverse reactions, such as headaches, when in proximity to power lines might not, in fact, simply be more sensitive to UV spectra, and hence, these corona events.

The UV suff in laundry detergents does not reflect UV light. IT flouresces in the visible spectrum (blueish) when illuminated by UV light, thus actually making the clothes brighter (as long as UV radiation is present).

Probably prohibitively expensive, but it would be nice if, someday, all that shit was underground. It looks horrible and is susceptible to lightning strikes, airplanes, helicopters (and now drones), falling trees, hurricanes, tornadoes and terrorist sabotage. And again, it just looks horrible. We bury fiber, copper, natural gas and water lines, so why is all our electrical strung up like the crack baby of a Christmas tree and a giant spider?

As opposed to the wacko conservatives who think we should keep destroying the environment including all of our food until we're all dead. Don't you just love exaggerated strawmen blanket statements? It's much easier than thinking.

There's a little bit more to it than that. UV is in virtually all normal light sources as well, it's the duration and intensity that are harmful. The reason animals are bothered would seem to be that there is a flashing light of a particular color in the otherwise dark night. You are probably at roughly equal risk if you frequent establishments that use blacklights.

Compare your sentence to the following to work out why it's bullshit. And if you can't work out why it's bullshit, please take a beginner's science course:

"There's acid in our stomachs! We're all going to dissolve away!".

or

"There's nitrogen in the air! You could suffocate!"

The question is not WHAT it is - it's UV light - it's how much it is. We're SWATHED in UV light right now. No matter where you are, unless possibly you are miles underground and have turned all the lights off (but, to be honest, by t

Its probably a matter of acclimatization. Deer that live near roadways get used to traffic (and get run over from time to time). Likewise, crows that aren't used to cars fly off as they approach while the ones that hang around roads just hop over to the fog line until they pass.

The problem would be the effect on migrating herds. Animals that live around power lines get used to them. But an elk herd from some distance away might take some time getting used to them before crossing under.

During the 80's I worked at a large nylon factory (1200 employees), they had two large HV transformers side by side under a chicken wire cage to keep humans and animals out. Somehow a possum (about the size of a racoon) found itself on the inside of the cage and was electrocuted, the shock threw it from one transformer to the other shorting out both. Damage bill was $50K plus a couple of days lost production.

That would be what we in the utility biz call "medium voltage". You don't really start to see corona until you get into the 60 kV and up range. That's "high voltage".

Keep in mind that any animal like a bird that approaches a high voltage line (within a few inches) will experience the same E-fields that cause the corona on the conductor. This discharge is a local ionization at an object's surface and would feel like something between an itching sensation and a continuous static discharge (painful).

One near me was taken out by a snake. The snake liked the heat, stretched out, and took out the substation. I've also heard of them being taken out by rodents (larger ones), but that included some chewing action, not just a short.

Not really. UV vision is pretty common among insects & birds. Additionally, it's pretty common in lizards and fish that live close to the surface. And don't get us started on the ridiculously overengineered eyes of the mantis shrimp.

Among mammals, it's common in nocturnal species like mice & bats, and we've started to notice it in reindeer and have theorized that it might be common in snow-adapted species.